RECULVER (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Blean, hundred of Bleangate, lathe of St. Augustine, E division of Kent, 10 miles NE by N from Canterbury. [1]

The ruined towers of St Mary's Church are the dominant feature in Reculver, see Reculver Wikipedia for a detailed history of the church and its ruin, the loss of the coastal town and the absorption of the civil parish into Herne Bay.

Reculver's parish boundary, remained the same for both ecclesiastical and civil purposes until 1934. Included were Reculver, Hillborough, Bishopstone and Brook (now Brook Farm), though the parish extended west almost to Beltinge, in Herne parish, and to Broomfield in the south-west – where the boundary with Herne parish ran along the centre of the main thoroughfare, now Margate Road – and it was bounded in open country on the south-east and east by the parish of Chislet. In 1934, the civil functions of the parish were merged into the civil parish of Herne Bay.

The replacement church for Reculver was built at Hillborough: St Mary The Virgin Reculver has a parish boundary map at A church near you and was built in 1813 but was replaced in 1876 and consecrated in 1878.

The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Reculver Lane, Canterbury has been designated as a grade C listed building British listed building

Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Census records from 1841 to 1911 are available online. For access, see England Census Records and Indexes Online. Census records from 1841 to 1891 are also available on film through a Family History Center or at the Family History Library.

Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

FHC Portal This centre has access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access in the centre to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.